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3. Linde plc (NYSE:LIN)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 70

Linde plc (NYSE:LIN) posted second quarter results back in July. Linde plc (NYSE:LIN)’s adjusted EPS in the period came in at $3.57 beating estimates by $0.09. Revenue in the quarter fell 4.7% year over year to $8.2 billion, missing estimates by $500 million.

Linde plc (NYSE:LIN) increased its full-year EPS guidance to $13.80 – $14.00.

Out of the 910 hedge funds in Insider Monkey’s database of hedge funds, 70 hedge funds reported owning stakes in Linde plc (NYSE:LIN).

Linde plc (NYSE:LIN)’s management talked about its guidance and shareholder value in its Q2 earnings call and said:

‘Through 6 months, we generated $5.4 billion of capital and returned a little more than half to shareholders while investing the balance back into the business. We believe this is a healthy ratio to achieve quality growth while rewarding owners. And to be clear, we are not capital constrained in any way. And thus, we’ll pursue all growth investments, which meet our criteria. I’ll wrap up with guidance on Slide 6. We’re raising full year guidance to a new range of $13.80 to $14 or 12% to 14% growth over 2022. This represents an increase of $0.35 on the bottom end and $0.15 on the top end. The top end increase is primarily attributed to the better Q2 results, while the second half assumption is consistent with last quarter. Therefore, the $14 figure assumes no economic improvement for the remainder of the year.

The bottom end increased more as we tightened the range from greater confidence in the year. By default, the bottom end assumes economic contractions and more negative volumes going forward. Consistent with prior guidance, this does not represent our economic view, but rather is the baseline for the assumption, irrespective of what happens, we’ll manage the business accordingly. For the third quarter, we’re providing an EPS guidance range of $3.48 to $3.58, up 12% to 15% versus prior year. Consistent with the full year assumption, the top end assumes a flat economy and below that implies more recessionary conditions. Note that FX is a 2% tailwind for the third quarter but has no impact to the full year. To sum it up, regardless of the economic rhetoric or latest opinion on what part of the cycle we’re in, Linde employees will continue to do what they do best, efficiently run the world’s leading industrial gas and engineering company, while creating long-term compounding shareholder value.”

Read the full earnings call transcript here.